Bouma's goal late in third gives Flames win over Panthers
For Calgary Flames coach Bob Hartley, this game was the one that didn't get away.
Lance Bouma scored the go-ahead goal to lift the Flames to a 6-4 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday. His one-timer from the slot came with 2:18 left and broke a 4-4 tie, giving the Flames their fourth win in their past five games.
Johnny Gaudreau added an empty-net power-play goal with 1:05 left, and also had two assists.
"It reminded me of one day when I was a kid, I was fishing for brook trout and I caught a nice one but I dropped it between two rocks," Hartley said. "With frozen fingers I tried to catch a trout that is dangling between two rocks; it's a tough one and I was scared to lose it. That's how I felt tonight. It was a wild one."
Bouma's winner rifled past goalie Al Montoya.
"I just took a look, I saw the glove hand was kind of open there and just tried to shoot as hard as I could," Bouma said.
Sean Monahan, Jiri Hudler, Mark Giordano and David Jones also scored goals for Calgary. Karri Ramo, making his first start in six games, gave up four goals on 22 shots for the Flames before being replaced by Jonas Hiller with 6:29 left in the second. Hiller stopped eight shots.
The Flames came back from a 3-1 deficit, and the momentum seemed to turn on a short-handed goal by Giordano that closed the score to 3-2. Giordano swept in a loose puck from under Montoya's pads as he stretched out on the ice and into the net at 9:44 of the second. Giordano has points in six straight games.
"For me, that was the biggest play of the game," Hartley said.
Scottie Upshall scored two goals and had an assist for Florida. Jimmy Hayes and Nick Bjugstad also scored for the Panthers. Montoya made 19 saves. Aaron Ekblad and Dmitri Kulikov each had two assists.
"We were fired up for Monte (Montoya) to be between the pipes and we just didn't give him the game in front of him that we needed to," Upshall said. "Down to crunch time, we didn't do the things we needed to do."
Monahan's tip-in with 15:07 left tied the score at 4 and extended his point streak to five games.
"It's not the game we wanted to play, but we got the result that we wanted," Monahan said.
With Florida leading 1-0, both teams combined for six goals in the second period.
Trailing 3-2, the Flames tied it at 3-all on Hudler's soft wrist shot that went over Montoya's glove at 12:56.
Florida reclaimed the lead 35 seconds later when Hayes tipped in a deflection on a shot by Upshall that chased Ramo from the game.
The Panthers, who have struggled scoring with a league-low 16 goals coming into the game, scored just 1:17 in on Upshall's first goal. Upshall passed the puck out from behind the net and it bounced off Ramo's right skate and backwards into the net to make it 1-0.
NOTES: Florida D Dmitri Kulikov left the game in the second with a lower body injury and did not return. ... Montoya made his second start this season for the Panthers, and first on home ice. ... Florida forward Jonathan Huberdeau returned after missing the past three games with the flu. ... Calgary LW Michael Ferland missed his fourth straight game with an upper body injury. ... The game was broadcast in 12 European countries, including the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom.
